


He Shall, from Time to Time...

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, West Wing Title Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 18:05:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sam closes the (imaginary) door, but later opens it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Shall, from Time to Time...

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Nichole and Laura for looking it over. Written for [**the West Wing title project**](http://musesfool.livejournal.com/1487052.html). 2,530 words.

1997

When Dean comes home to the crappy studio apartment Dad's renting by the week, Sam's sitting on the bed, headphones on, studying. The area around his bed is marked with duct tape. There's about a foot of space between the bed and the tape, with an indent about two feet wide at the foot of the bed.

Dean thinks about asking, but decides it's probably not worth the hassle. It's probably some weird school project thing Sam's doing for extra credit, the little geek. They were only at the last school for three weeks, and Sam's already freaking out about catching up in time for midterms.

He doesn't answer when Dean says his name, so Dean throws a pillow at him. It hits him in the chest, forcing him to look up.

"Dean!" Sam's voice finally changed a couple of months ago, but when he whines, it still makes the hair on the back of Dean's neck stand up. "What'd you do that for?"

"What do you want for dinner?" He doesn't know why he bothers to ask. After gassing up the car, there's not enough extra cash for takeout, so it looks like another night of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Even Sam won't complain about that--it's his favorite.

"Do you have money for pizza?"

"No."

Sam sighs like it's the end of the world. "Then I guess mac and cheese is fine."

Dean nods and hopes the milk hasn't gone off. It's chilly out and he doesn't want to walk back down to the bodega. Sam watches him for a moment and then puts his headphones back on and dives back into his reading. Dean shrugs and heads for the kitchenette.

Thirty minutes later, he's dishing out macaroni and cheese for himself and Sam, and thinking that once Sam is settled in for the night, he's going to have to head to the roadhouse on the outskirts of town and hustle some pool, because they're down to their last twenty bucks. Dad hasn't called in three days, and the rent is due on Monday.

Sam is still sitting on his bed, headphones on and nose buried in his book. He doesn't even notice Dean sidling over until Dean thwaps him in the head.

"Hey!" Sam jerks his head up, outraged, and the headphones slip off. "What the hell?" He looks down at Dean's feet, which are inside the duct tape line on the floor, and says, "You can't be in here. This is my room."

Dean blinks, confused for a second, and then the penny drops. Maybe all those paranoid parents are right about TV being bad for kids; maybe he shouldn't have let Sammy watch so much Nick at Nite. On the other hand, Loni Anderson was seriously hot in the seventies, and the kid needs to see that.

"There's no room here, Sam," he makes air quotes around room with his fingers, just to be extra-annoying. "There's just some duct tape on the floor. If you rip up the linoleum and we don't get the deposit back, Dad's going to kill you."

Sam gets up and points to the spot where the tape indents at the foot of the bed. "Get out."

Dean steps over the tape line where he's standing, and Sam says, in the aggrieved tone he uses all the time now, "You can't walk through the wall, Dean."

"Sammy." It comes out a frustrated gust of breath. Sam gives him a look that's a cross between a pout and a scowl. "You're not careful, your face is gonna freeze like that."

"Really?" Sam cocks his head curiously, distracted for a moment.

How sad are their lives that it's a legitimate question? Dean shakes his head. "No, not really. Not that I know of, anyway. I guess there could be a hex or a curse--" He shakes his head again, trying to get back on track. "Dinner's ready. Go wash up." He steps over the line that's supposed to be the door.

"I'm shutting the door on you now, Dean."

"The imaginary door."

Sam flips him off and climbs back onto the bed, already pulling the textbook into his lap again.

"Dinner's going to get cold."

"I just need to finish this chapter."

Dean bites back a sigh and shrugs. "Whatever."

Sam puts his headphones back on and turns his back, emphasizing his point.

Sam's always been intensely private. There was a stretch between when he learned to dress himself to when they started sparring and occasionally needed patching up that Dean didn't see him without a shirt on at all times, and even now he prefers to change in the bathroom. Dean doesn't mind the way the three of them live on top of each other, though sometimes he wishes for privacy himself (usually the day the new Penthouse comes out), but it seems to be really hard on Sam. The last few times Dad's checked them into a motel, Sam's asked if he can have his own room. So far, Dad has been pretty mellow about it, rolling his eyes and laughing when he says no, but Dean thinks that won't last if Sam keeps pushing it. He's kind of proud the kid came up with a way to fix it on his own, though once Dad gets back it won't be much of a solution. It's not really much of a solution now, but Dean figures it's the idea of walls, of privacy and space of his own, that's more important to Sam at the moment, and Dean can give him that.

When Dad calls on Tuesday and tells them to pack up, Dean doesn't comment on the tape they leave behind, like the chalked outline of a body on the grotty old linoleum of the apartment. He hopes Sam's gotten the urge out of his system.

*

2002

At first, Dean is able to act like hunting by himself is the best thing ever. He pretends it doesn't sting that Dad barely waited two weeks after Sam walked out to suggest they split up, pretends he's having the time of his life. He drinks, fucks, and hunts his way down the eastern seaboard. He still gets double rooms, habit as old as breathing can't be broken in a month, but it's not until he's stuck in South Carolina, weathering out Tropical Storm Kyle (it's named Kyle, he thinks, of course it's a douchebag of a storm), that he actually spends more than an hour or two awake in a motel room.

He stopped on the way into town to pick up provisions, so he's got a meat-lovers pizza to tide him over; he's also got a six-pack of El Sol, a couple of bottles of Jack, and Casa Erotica II on cable to keep him company while he waits for the storm to die down.

He's five beers down and halfway through the first bottle of Jack when he finds the duct tape in the bottom of his duffel. He remembers Sam's Les Nessman stage, and chokes out a laugh. He wonders if giving the kid his own room once in a while might have kept him from leaving. If anything would have, or if that was as inevitable as this storm that's rattling the creaky old motel he's staying in.

Dean manages to get the tape down on the fugly green and yellow carpeting, though it meanders a little down the left side of the second bed. He tips over onto his back when he's done, stares up at the ceiling, roll of duct tape clutched to his chest like he's forgotten it's there; the water stains on the ugly white tile are shaped like elephants.

The phone in his back pocket is digging into his ass, and he pulls it out, annoyed, and stares at it for a few minutes. Before he can tell himself it's a bad idea, he dials Sam's number, listens to it ring.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Sammy," he says.

"Dean? Are you all right? Where are you?" The familiar sound of Sam's voice eases something in Dean's chest.

"'M fine, Sammy. Hurricane Kyle's being a dick, so I'm stuck in South Carolina till it blows over. Wasted Scarlett O'Hara last night. You'd've loved her."

"Are you drunk? Are you drunk dialing me?"

"Had a couple beers." He burps and then laughs, ignoring the beer-flavored bile in the back of his throat. "Put tape down, like you used to. 'Member, Sammy? Imaginary walls and an imaginary door." Even he can hear the hysterical edge in his laughter.

"It's Sam, and I can't believe you're drunk dialing me. Take some aspirin, drink some water, and go to bed, before you give yourself alcohol poisoning."

"Aw, Sammy, you worried 'bout your big brother?"

Sam mutters something Dean can't understand and then says, "Sleep on your side. Don't want you drowning in your own vomit before Dad gets back."

"Dad's in Vermont. Or Ohio. Or fuck, I don't even know." It makes him sad--Sam's in California, Dad's fuck knows where, and he's lying on the floor of the Howard Johnson in Edisto Beach with nothing but Jack Daniels and the elephants on the ceiling to keep him company. "There's elephants on the ceiling," he says. "Can you believe that shit? Elephants on the ceiling. Like fucking Dumbo. Fucking hated that movie."

"I know you did, Dean. Get some sleep, okay?"

"Sam?"

"I gotta go, Dean. I have work to do."

"Sammy?"

"Take care of yourself, Dean. And don't drunk dial me again, okay?"

"Not drunk, Sammy," he lies, but he's talking to dead air. Sam's already hung up on him. Fuck. There's an ache in his chest now that he'll swear on a stack of bibles is heartburn from that fucking cheap-ass pizza, and he feels like he's going to puke.

He rolls over onto his side, draws his knees up to his chest, and closes his eyes. The nausea passes, and he falls asleep there; in one hand, he's got the roll of duct tape clutched to his chest like a teddy bear, and in the other, his cell phone, which doesn't ever seem to ring.

When he wakes up, he's still lying on the gross carpet. His mouth tastes like dead things, and he can only half-remember his conversation with Sam, but he gets the impression Sam wasn't happy to hear from him. Dean won't call him again.

*

2009

"I'll be back," Sam says, pulling on his sneakers and heading out the door.

Dean wants to call him back, wants to question him--Where are you going? What are you doing? Who are you doing it with? When will you be back?\--but he just grunts and nods, swallows down the words. He's not any better than Dad ever was at giving Sam his space--maybe worse, now, after everything.

He glances over at Sam's bed, clothes and books overflowing the duffel like spilled salt; it's familiar, comforting, and he can feel himself relaxing little by little, easing back into their partnership the way he'd ease back into hunting after an injury. He wonders if he should have offered to get separate rooms. He never quite got used to being alone, but maybe Sam has.

Nothing he can do about it now, but he makes a mental note to ask next time, practices forcing the words out as they stick in his throat.

He goes out to the car, finds the roll of duct tape in the trunk, and eyes the room speculatively.

A few minutes later, Sam's bed is surrounded by imaginary tape walls, and Dean is pretending his palms aren't sweaty and his stomach queasy from the vague memory of the last time he did this. He takes his phone out, wants to call Sam and demand to know where he is and why he's not back yet, but he breathes deep and shoves it back into his pocket instead.

He lies down on his bed and tries to nap, gives it up and turns the TV on after a few minutes, flipping through the channels to find something that isn't about the end of the world in one way or another.

He's watching A League of Their Own when Sam comes back in, sweaty from a run and carrying a pizza with him.

"Half mushroom, half onion," Sam says before Dean can say anything. He puts it down on the table and wipes his forehead with his t-shirt. "Since we drove through lunch." He looks at the TV and back at Dean, and opens his mouth to say something, and then stops.

Dean freezes, tips of his ears burning in embarrassment, while Sam stares at the tape lines on the floor.

"Dude. What--Why is there duct tape around my bed? Is there salt underneath it or something?"

"Yeah, Sammy, your t-shirts are so rank they've come to life and nothing else would contain them." He scratches the back of his neck, feeling awkward. If Sam doesn't remember, or if he misinterprets the gesture, Dean doesn't know what he'll do.

"Very funny, Dean. It's not like we couldn't have done laundry before we left. But I get why you wanted to leave Canton so fast. I mean, you got beat up by Paris Hilton."

"And you got choked by Gandhi, so I don't think you've got room to talk."

Sam scowls at him half-heartedly, mouth already twitching into something more like a smile, and Dean smirks in response. He gets off the bed and grabs a slice of pizza, frowning and poking at the bits of mushroom that have sneaked onto the onion side of the pie.

"Could you not handle my food?" Sam says from the bathroom, where he's washing up and toweling off.

"I'm not," Dean says, picking another mushroom off his slice and dropping it onto Sam's side of the pizza.

He's back on his bed, one slice devoured and a second one half gone, when Sam's finally done in the bathroom. He's not going to mention the tape again if Sam doesn't.

Sam grabs his own slices of pizza and a bottle of water and then stops at the foot of his bed. "I appreciate the gesture," he says, scuffing the tape line with his sock-clad toes. "Boundaries are good. I think we should have some." Sam sits down on the bed. "But I think we've put up enough walls."

Dean nods and takes another bite of pizza. And when Sam's not looking, he flicks a sneaky mushroom at him. It hits him in the head, and Dean laughs so hard he almost chokes on his mouthful of food.

Sam retaliates by spitting water at him, and by the time they're done, they're both in Sam's bed, because Dean's is full of crumbs and damp spots.

A League of Their Own is over, so Dean grabs the remote and puts the actual ball game on. "I hope the Dodgers win," he says, "and show the Yankees they were wrong to get rid of Torre."

Sam nods like he cares, and Dean settles in beside him, shoulder to shoulder, to watch the game.

end

~*~


End file.
